Barr's removal of career national security official, weeks before election, raises concerns
Source: abc
A little-known office in the Justice Department has lost its long-time chief.
August 31, 2020, 1:07 PM
Current and former national security officials are raising concerns over Attorney General William Barr's recent decision to remove the head of a Justice Department office that helps ensure federal counterterrorism and counterintelligence activities are legal and replace him with a political appointee with relatively limited experience.
"It's very alarming," said Katrina Mulligan, who worked for the Obama administration in several national security roles and then, after President Donald Trump's inauguration, joined the Office of Law and Policy in the Justice Department's National Security Division.
For much of the past decade, that little-known office has been led by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brad Wiegmann, a 23-year career public servant, not a political appointee. But two weeks ago, Wiegmann, 54, was told he is being reassigned and replaced with a political appointee, according to a Justice Department spokesman and sources familiar with the matter.
Mulligan and other sources told ABC News that the new head of the office is 36-year-old Kellen Dwyer, a cyber-crimes prosecutor who joined the federal government six years ago and made international headlines in November 2018 when he accidentally revealed that federal charges had been secretly filed against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Mulligan said that given Dwyer's limited time and experience handling national security matters, he is "a very odd" choice to replace Wiegmann, whom she described as "exceptional" at managing government bureaucracy and resolving "highly contentious matters across the government."
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Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/barrs-removal-career-national-security-official-weeks-election/story?id=72726426&cid=social_twitter_abcn
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Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)bucolic_frolic
(42,676 posts)Barr is going all in on something. We'd best put some think tankers on this one.
Under The Radar
(3,401 posts)....he is appointing Hillary as attorney general, then watch how fast everything gets put back to normal.
progressive nobody
(816 posts)AZ8theist
(5,339 posts)Who can't keep his mouth shut. What could possibly go wring?
Vlad must be popping champagne right now. ...
Wuddles440
(1,098 posts)When Benedict Donald says "they're trying to rig the election", he's for once actually being truthful. Of course, by "rigging the election" he's referring to actions that he and his cabal of traitors and hacks will be perpetrating. Expect this type of corruption and much, much more in the coming days and weeks. He will not even remotely accept the possibility of defeat and has absolutely no intention of vacating our White House. What's frightening is that many Democrats and apathetic citizens are not prepared for this prospect. Things are not "normal" folks, we need to be operating in DEFCON 1!
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)Edwcraig
(287 posts)Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,111 posts)Kid Berwyn
(14,651 posts)Fuck you, Trump.
RhodeIslandOne
(5,042 posts)Assholes.